


don't let go (till i reach for you)

by strangehighs



Series: until your heartbeat hurts no more [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Nicky died before the Crusades, Pre-Relationship, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26001475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangehighs/pseuds/strangehighs
Summary: It took them a hundred and twenty seven years to find him; five more than the time passed since Yusuf’s first death at Jerusalem. During his first years, before Andromache and Quynh brought him into their fold, he thought the dreams were just that, figments of a mind desperate for answers, even though part of them always felt more like nightmares. The faces of his current companions—laughing, battling, free and happy—were night after night followed by a darkness that seemed to fill his entire body, a despair he couldn’t name.It took him years to realise that inhuman feeling came from someone as human as himself. A man just like himself.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: until your heartbeat hurts no more [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960714
Comments: 100
Kudos: 754





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just some whump that wouln't leave my mind alone. The concept is: Nicky died before joining the Crusades, but was imprisoned for his dark magic that wouldn't let him die; the others take a long time to find him, and when they do, he takes a long time to believe this is real, since he spent years dreaming of them. Enjoy.

It took them a hundred and twenty-seven years to find him—five more than the time passed since Yusuf’s first death at Jerusalem. During his first years, before Andromache and Quỳnh brought him into their fold, he thought the dreams were just that, figments of a mind desperate for answers, even though part of them always felt more like nightmares. The faces of his current companions, laughing, battling, free and happy, were night after night followed by a darkness that seemed to fill his entire body, a despair he couldn’t name.

It took him years to realize that inhuman feeling came from someone as human as himself. A man just like himself.

They told him they had been dreaming about him for five years before Yusuf’s time came. He was younger than him, than any of them, and his death had been nothing more than an accident. A spooked horse, wrong place and wrong time, a death and an awakening. He had been unfortunate enough to be surrounded by people when it happened, and they had seen his broken body, trampled by the frightened animal, mend and come back to life with a confused start while they tried to remove him from the middle of the street. They branded him a demon, tortured and killed him, many times over until they tired, and then they locked him up.

He only had their word for it, since it all happened before him. He’d only ever dreamed of darkness, fear, and hunger. Of madness creeping by.

There were no clues on where he could be, not even a name or a face in his case, and it weighed on them as the years passed. Whenever it became too heavy, too oppressive, either Quỳnh or Andromache sat close to him, in a silent request. They described the face they had seen so long ago, before the man was confined to that forgotten cell, so they wouldn't forget. He did his best to capture the likeness they described: big eyes of a light sea green, set deep in his face, and a mole on the right side of his jaw; a prominent nose, light brown hair shaved in a tonsure. The face he constructed time after time haunted him as The dreams kept on and sometimes Yusuf felt like he was going as mad as the man living them.

Three years back it changed suddenly. They dreamt of running on unsteady legs through damp stone corridors and up stairs, of being blinded by sunlight after more than a century of nothing. Running and running, lungs burning with the effort, chased by shouting and the piercing pain of arrows slicing through tired flesh. Mountains in the distance and a lake. The dream ended when the man fell, and Andromache gasped _Lacus Maximus_. The next night they dreamt of darkness again.

They traveled, basing themselves on the centuries-old knowledge Andromache had of the land, from the time of the Romans, and as they went they inquired as best as they could without raising suspicions. It frustrated them as the time passed with no success, until one day, due to a drunkard's loose tongue, they found him. A demon locked under a fort for a hundred years, a creature that would die a thousand times and come back, no matter what. He seemed to be having a rather lot of fun describing the things the guards did to pass the time on their shifts.

Quỳnh was waiting for him when he stepped outside, blade in hand. 

Stealth evaded them, after so many years of wait, so they fought their way in. Andromache got separated from them during the skirmish in her rage, and it fell to Yusuf and Quỳnh the task of releasing him.

When the door opened, heavy and stiff with disuse, the first thing that hit him was the smell; thick and pervasive, old blood and waste left alone for a century. For as long as he lived (and it would be very long indeed), Yusuf would always carry the anger, the shame at the fact that he recoiled from it, taking a step back when Quỳnh pressed on with a torch in her hand. The darkness seemed to swallow the meager light it offered, and although the cell was small, it took them a moment to find what they were looking for.

The man lay curled on the floor, so dirt-streaked you could barely discern him among the stones, and he lay unmoving even while they crouched beside him. He didn’t flinch when Quỳnh laid a hand on his shoulder, nor when Yusuf propped him into sitting, but he wasn’t unconscious. Quỳnh pushed the mess of knotted hair away from his face, revealing a pair of vacant eyes staring at nothing ahead. He gave no indication of noticing them, not even a flicker.

Yusuf carried him out when they had no success in making him stand, wrapped in only a cloak. The look in Andromache’s face when she saw them emerge was one he’d always remember too.

She burned the building to the ground, and the flames lit their way as they fled.

They rode hard through the Alps, coming out the other side much faster than they normally would. They traded the horses for fresh ones, eager to put distance between them and anyone who might want to claim their companion back, and after two very uncomfortable days, they arrived at a house a few miles outside of Bern Andromache acquired the year before. Throughout the journey the man stayed just as silent and pliant as a puppet, accepting all of Yusuf’s handling during the ride as if he felt nothing.

Yusuf caught himself wishing for any kind of reaction. A spark of recognition, any sort of resistance. Anything, just to prove there was still a mind behind those unsettling green eyes.

He did not react while they bathed him, unless you counted a full-body shiver as his skin touched the warm water. Quỳnh cut his hair, talking to him the entire time in as many languages as she could remember, but she received no answer. Yusuf shaved him in silence. He knew of no language she had not tried already.

The first reaction, the first _real_ one, came when they moved to dress him. He’d been naked when they found him, and if Yusuf could remember correctly (he did, he didn’t think he could ever forget any of those dreams), he had been so for a long time. The tunic was soft wool, gentle on the skin, and he lowered his face to look at his clothed chest, blinking slowly. As Andromache rolled the socks up his shin, he followed the movement also. He felt Quỳnh exhaling sharply beside him, extending a hand to grasp her beloved’s shoulder. Yusuf sent a prayer to God under his breath. It was hope.

It was slow progress, on all fronts, the matter of his recovery. As the days turned to weeks, the man started doing things such as eating and bathing with less prompting. Most of the time he would eat what was put into his hands, would dress himself with only little hesitation. 

Sometimes though… 

Some days he would stare at the food put on the table as if he didn't know exactly what it was. Or he would hold a sock for long moments just feeling the texture of the fabric between his fingertips, unaware of the world around him.

They took turns to make him company, the three of them. Andromache and Quỳnh's preferred activity was talking, about anything and everything, in a litany of different languages. Soft tales of adventures past, songs long forgotten by anyone except themselves. None of them received any answer, and he could see it was taking its toll on their friends, so more and more Yusuf took the task to himself. 

As talking brought no results, Yusuf chose a different approach. Bundling up the man in careful layers against the chill, he took to leading them on walks around the grounds, the grass lush and dewy in early spring mornings. Sometimes they would just wander the paths, the man following him without question, and come back to the house, but other times Yusuf would take his sketchbook with him and they would sit while he drew. He thought at first that it was his imagination, his wishful thinking playing tricks. The third time it happened he knew it was real; the green eyes flickered towards him, watching intently for a second, before turning away. It happened more and more, especially when he was drawing supposedly unaware, and then it started happening with the others too.

They tried not to press the issue, but the first time he looked at Quỳnh directly while she sang, with no subterfuge, she couldn’t help but hug him. He didn’t flinch.

He seemed fond of watching Yusuf the most though, and while he thought it unnerving at first, it became a comfort later. He watched him go about the kitchen, or while he washed clothes. He watched him most intently when he was drawing, but still he didn’t say a word. Yusuf didn’t mind. They had time after all.

News of a series of strange kidnappings reached them six months after they had come to Bern. There wasn’t much to discuss; they could do something, so that meant they should. In the end, Andromache and Quỳnh went alone, while Yusuf stayed behind to tend to their guest. It wasn’t a hard choice for him.

They settled into an easy rhythm, just the two of them. Yusuf would tend to the house, and their few animals, take walks with the silent man, draw. He’d started filling the silence with some chatter of his own, though he decided against trying all the languages he knew; he stuck to the lingua franca he learned in his youth, used by traders from all over the Mediterranean. It elicited the same response as bengali when Andromache tried, so he had very few expectations over this second attempt.

One afternoon, much like any other, Yusuf had set himself on the kitchen’s doorstep with his sketchbook balanced on his knees. He was not drawing this time, absorbed into the activity of studying his past few works. More and more the man figured among the pages: a profile here, a silhouette there; eyes, deep-set and vivid, staring back from the paper. He couldn’t name what made him repeat the subject time and time again. By his side, he felt his companion sit just out of touch, the same eyes he was currently studying on the paper boring into him.

“Would you like to see?” he asked. He had never offered before, for some reason, but now it felt only right to do so. When no answer came except for the continuous stare, Yusuf gently put the book open in the man’s lap.

Slowly, the eyes left his face and fixed themselves on the pages, the hands following a moment later. The fingers turned the pages, sometimes stopping to trace the lines with a tenderness he hadn’t shown so far; a small frown between the man’s eyebrows deepened each time his own face appeared between the drawings. Yusuf watched him, drinking in the small flickers of emotion that weren’t there in the early days. He didn’t miss the impassive face, waxen and empty; he longed to see how his smile looked like.

“This is real.”

He almost missed the raspy words, so deep in his contemplation he was, but when his mind caught up with his ears, Yusuf snapped his head up to look at the man. The big eyes were still focused on the drawings, and for a moment he thought he’d imagined it.

“It is real,” he said. He wasn’t entirely sure which language he’d just heard, such was his surprise, so he continued using sabir. “What did you think it was?”

The man hesitated. “A dream,” he answered. “I dreamed of… you, and them,” he continued, tracing a drawing of Andromache and Quỳnh in the pages, “For a long time. The cell was real.”

Haltingly though they were, Yusuf now noticed the man spoke ligure, but seemed to understand the lingua franca enough. “It was, but so are we now. We’re like you,” he said, shifting to what he could remember of the dialect. The man raised his head to look at him now. “We heal if we get hurt, and we come back if we die. The four of us are the same, we dreamt of you while you dreamt of us.”

Frowning, the man stared at him uncomprehending. He opened his mouth as if to speak, only to close it with a sigh a moment later; without another word, he closed and returned the book. Standing, he walked back inside leaving Yusuf alone on the porch. He wanted to ask him to stay, not entirely sure if the cold he felt was just from the chill of the approaching night. The man refused dinner, and wouldn’t meet his eyes all evening. He slept poorly, waking many times to watch the shape laying down on the other bed across the room.

The sound of rain pelting against the roof woke Yusuf in the morning. Blearily, he sat on the bed running his eyes; his thoughts went to the other man before he even managed to string them into any shape of order. Would he say something new today? Would Yusuf finally get to learn his name? Would he-

The bed across the room was empty.

Jolting up, Yusuf ran out of the bedroom, heart beating frantic in his chest; he never rose before Yusuf, even when he woke first. In the kitchen, he saw the back door open, the rain slowly flooding the room, but no sign of his companion. The cold hit him like a wall, leaving him to gasp as the last remnants of sleep vanishing as the water drenched him to the bone, and then he saw. 

He stood in the grass just a few paces away from the door, arms open in the rain; his breathing foggy against the downpour. With his head thrown back, clothes and hair stuck to his skin, he looked more like a creature out of a tale than a simple man, one who would still get astonished at small things like a warm pot of stew. Yusuf’s mind supplied that neither of them were _just_ simple men, in any case.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked through the angry beatings of his heart, relief slow to sink through the scare.

“I am,” the man answered. “Cold, and wet. And it is not a dream.”

Yusuf’s heart stuttered at the candid remark. “It is not. This is real, my friend,” he said. Stepping closer, he reached up to the man’s hand, grasping it with his own. The face turned to the sky lowered to look at him, blue-lipped and shivering, but so free. “Come inside, please? I’d rather not have you freeze to death out here.”

“It would not hurt me,” the man answered, teeth chattering as if only now he noticed exactly how cold he was. “I’ve died from the cold many times, I think.”

“Just because you don’t stay dead doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Yusuf said, pulling him towards the house. “I have died many times too, in many different ways, and each time it hurt just as much.” He stopped just at the threshold to see the man staring at him intently. “I would not see you hurt if I can help it.”

They didn’t talk as they changed their sodden clothes for dry ones, settling down in front of the kitchen fire to drive the chill away from their limbs, but the silence wasn’t heavy this time. It felt companionable, comfortable. Yusuf stood to fix them something to eat, and when he pressed a warm plate in the waiting hands, the man’s eyes seemed to smile at him.

“We tried to find you for so long,” he said after a moment, the mere thought of the years past making his throat tight. “We didn’t know where you were, or who you were. We couldn’t even see your face, for most of it.”

“In the dreams?”

“Yes. Andromache and Quỳnh told me about the first ones, about how you died,” answered Yusuf. “I only ever dreamt of the darkness, so I couldn’t help much.”

“The dreams,” the man said, fixing him with a pensive look, “Why do they happen?”

“We don’t know, exactly. We dream of each other, until we meet for the first time,” he answered, scratching his beard. “I think… I think it’s because we’re not meant to be alone.”

“Like destiny.”

The man turned back to the fire, his last words said in a soft breath. “Yes,” Yusuf said, watching the sharp profile shining gold by his side, “Like destiny.”

Sighing, his companion closed his eyes, basking in the warmth licking at his skin. Yusuf had so many questions swirling in his head, about the other man’s life before, about the years in between. Where he was from, who were his parents? Did he have sisters, brothers? Did he like the honeyed bread Yusuf learned how to bake a few months ago as much as he seemed to like? Did he even know how many times he had died, or how much time he had passed buried alive in that cell?

He asked none of these things. Not yet.

“I’m Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Kaysani,” he said. The man turned to him, cocking his head. “Just Yusuf to my friends,” he added with a smile.

The man returned his smile with barely a quirk in the corner of his lips, and still it seemed to light up his entire face. Yusuf’s fingers itched, to draw this new expression, or trace it until he committed it to memory. He did neither, pinned in place by the soft look. In the end, he did extend his hand in invitation and was rewarded when he felt fingers threading into his own.

“I repeated my name to myself when I was alone,” the man breathed, the words pulled from deep within, “Once I noticed they wouldn’t let me go, because I didn’t want to forget…”

Yusuf waited, squeezing the hand clasped to his. The man watched the fire, frowning a little, before shaking his head and turning back to him, a full smile spreading through his face and Yusuf's heart stopped.

“Nicolò,” he finally said, “My name is Nicolò.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time he seriously considered he might not be dreaming—that no matter how unlikely he thought it was, this was real—didn't come from anything remarkable, or even remotely special. In fact, it happened during a late afternoon like many others, but, unlike the ones before, he noticed this one had a sort of clarity he hadn't felt in…
> 
> Well, he didn't know how long it had been since he had any memories that weren't muddled like puddle water.

The first time he seriously considered he might not be dreaming—that no matter how unlikely he thought it was, this was _real_ —didn't come from anything remarkable, or even remotely special. In fact, it happened during a late afternoon like many others, but, unlike the ones before, he noticed this one had a sort of clarity he hadn't felt in…

Well, he didn't know how long it had been since he had any memories that weren't muddled like puddle water.

She sat beside him darning a sock, the one with black hair and black eyes, quick-fingered and sure; their shoulders were close enough he could feel the heat of her skin through the fabric of his shirt, but not close enough to touch. The meaning of the words she sang under her breath was lost to him, though not because they seemed to come from a long distance like they did most of the time. Her words, the steady melody of them, reached him sharp enough he could discern the syllables and pauses, the curling vowels and a slight lilt as if that wasn't her mother tongue, but they were _clear_. He simply didn't know their meaning.

The realization jolted through him like lightning, from his head to the tips of his fingers. He turned to her, and he could _see_ her. The eyelashes fanned over cheekbones, a stray lock escaped from her ponytail, details and nuances and textures. Real.

She chose that moment to raise her head, a soft quirk on her lips turning slack-jawed when their eyes met, and she must have _seen_ him back. Seen the awareness he felt. They stared at each other for a long moment, and whatever it was that she saw, it compelled her to pull him to her, to embrace him tight against her chest while muttering in yet another language he couldn’t understand. 

( _Say something_ , urged a voice inside his head, familiar, but also not. _Anything_.

 _How?_ His words had forgotten how to make their way out of his head, and he had no idea how to change that.

He said nothing.)

The second time he had been outside, sitting with his back pressed against the stone wall, warm, and dry.

( _This is important_ , said the voice in his head, more insistent each day. _This wall is warm and dry, and there’s sun in your face_. 

_Walls are cold and damp_ , he thought, confused for a moment.

 _This one isn’t_ , the voice answered. _Remember that._ )

He wasn’t alone now, as he rarely ever was. The awareness came and went, but it stayed for longer nowadays, and he started taking notice of the people with him more deeply. This time it was the other woman, long-limbed and light-eyed, wielding an ax against woodblocks with deft precision. One swing, one log split perfectly in half, and the pile beside him grew a little more. He watched the muscles bunching under her clothes, tensing and releasing in an economic manner that spoke of familiarity with her tool, used as an extension of herself.

She looked like she could tear a body as easily as she did the wood, and yet, he felt nothing but safe with her. The voice urged him again to find his words, to force them out, but how could he? He had none still.

Her outstretched hand, reaching for the next log, gave him a different option. He watched her, waiting for the right moment to act, and when she reached again, he took it and passed her the piece of wood. Arrow fast, she turned to him, gaze penetrating down to his soul, _seeing_. His heartbeat was loud in his ears, the urge to avert his eyes pressing at the front of his mind-eye contact meant pain, demons weren't worthy of holding their head up-but he insisted, biting his cheek against the wave of nausea rising in his throat.

The hand reached further beyond his offering, settling against the curve of his cheek. It startled him, the softness of the sweaty palm on his skin; he imagined it would be rough, littered with calluses, given her affinity with the ax. The touch was just as soft, thumb stroking gently across his cheekbone.

Later, as he reasoned with the voice in his head, he sustained that the lump in his throat was the only reason he had for still keeping his silence. 

The voice kept scoffing at him.

He noticed the women left, he noticed most things these days. It scared him, for a moment, that maybe they’d all leave, and he would be alone again, but after they saw them off, the man swaddled him in shirts, and coats, and scarves, and led them on the walk that had become part of their routine.

He liked the man’s company the most, he’d decided early on. Oh, he appreciated the others greatly, more than he could describe, but there was something about the man… 

( _It's his smile_ , said the voice one night, laced with amusement.

 _What about it?_ he asked. Sometimes the voice made very little sense, in his opinion.

 _It's why you like him best,_ it explained. _Because his smile when he looks at you makes you feel like you're special, extraordinary. When was the last time you felt like that?_

 _I'm not sure I've ever felt like that,_ he answered at last, after a long pause.

The voice was quiet afterward.)

Watching him became one of his favourite activities, even before he started doubting the quality of his reality. In time, he remembered other things about him, about how he appeared in his dreams the same day they threw him at that deepest cell that would become his entire world for however long; how that new face brought him more comfort than he could understand. He remembered his face haloed in sunlight over stone walls, shining golden against the blue sky; he remembered the dream warming him up to the core, shielding him against the cold of his cage. 

Sometimes, when he watched the man walking a step ahead of him on their walks, or even just kneading dough in the kitchen, he could almost feel the words itching at the tip of his tongue, but when he tried to string them together they scattered. It frustrated him more each day, especially when he noticed he could actually understand the man’s words.

Seeing his face (His face! That was his face!) repeated countless times on the book the man carried, captured in bold ink lines, broke down the barrier at last, and he barely noticed the words tumbling down his lips. It was real. Real.

(The rain was real. Cold, wet, _real_.

The hand on his own was real. Strong, kind.

Yusuf, with his lovely name, even loveliest smile, was _real_.)

After that things seemed to accelerate, gaining even more color, and shape, and texture. They talked, and their talking made Nicolò—his name had been the last thing the voice said before going quiet forever, and he realized it had just been his own voice—remember more and more. He remembered the sea, its smell, the feel of salt drying against his skin; he remembered getting up before the sun to pray at the seminary, years of steady routine. The clamor for action, for war, sanctioned by the Church. The irony of it was not lost on him, that Yusuf was of the people he was supposed to hate on principle.

“Tell me,” said Yusuf one morning, as he watched Nicolò milk one of their goats. “Would you have joined the fight, if you hadn’t died before it happened?”

Nicolò considered his answer, muddling through some still unwilling fragments of memory. “I think I would have,” he said at least, raising his head to watch Yusuf’s reaction. He gave none. “Priests aren’t allowed to fight, but I had training, from when I was a child, and… I believed.”

His words still fell short of what he wanted to say sometimes, and watching Yusuf’s face made him want to find more of them, to explain himself better.

“Do you, still? Believe, I mean.”

There was no malice in his question, Nicolò noticed, despite the effects certain answers could have; only genuine curiosity shined through his eyes. Yusuf was never malicious.

“It all seems so distant now,” he sighed, releasing the animal. “I barely feel the same person. What he believed makes no difference to what I am now, I think. I’m still trying to figure out some parts of me.”

Yusuf’s lips quirked, amused, and he let the matter drop. He led the goat back to her pen, coming back to help him carry their produce.

“Do you think we would have met there if I hadn’t died?” asked Nicolò later, while they washed clothes in the yard. Yusuf raised an eyebrow, questioning. “At Jerusalem. Do you think we would have found each other?”

“I like to think we would have, yes.” Yusuf threw him one of his blinding smiles, and his heart almost leaped out of his chest. “I like my life better with you in it, even if you would have hated me as nothing but a filthy, faithless barbarian back then.”

“I could never hate you,” he exclaimed, the words pulled out of him by instinct, and Yusuf’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

“Not even if I had killed you?”

“Not even then,” he answered with conviction, and he knew it to be true. His cheeks burned at the sharp gaze focused on him. 

“I could never hate you either,” said Yusuf after a beat, his expression soft now. “Actually, maybe I would have, for a little while, you would’ve been a smelly, savage frank after my blood after all, but I imagine we would have been able to move past that eventually,” he teased, “After I dunked you in a bath, obviously.”

Before he realized, their solitary days came to an end, and the others, Andromache and Quỳnh he now knew, came back. He would never forget the look in Quỳnh’s face when she saw him waiting for them beside Yusuf, her gasp when he said a simple _hi_. His heart had been beating hard, erratic in his anxiety, and he felt it stop when she pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. He looked at Yusuf, hopelessly asking for help, only to see his eyes shining with unshed tears. His breath caught in his throat when Andromache reached for him over Quỳnh’s shoulder, cupping the back of his head as she brought his face close; she kissed his cheeks, his eyelids, and he felt he was crying.

The next few days saw him exhausting his words over and over, their combined efforts pushing him to his limits with unending patience for his shortcomings. They talked about anything and everything; about his memories, and feelings, about the weather and the housework. They told him tales again now that he could understand them, things so long past only the ones around him still remembered. Andromache, as the oldest, tried her best to explain to him what she knew about what they were. Apparently, they were not truly immortal, but Nicolò didn’t care much about it. All things had to die at some point.

Stories about the things they did always had a way of involving fighting, and at that point Nicolò felt inadequate near them; his own death had been silly, an accident instead of in battle, and before that, it had been more than a decade since he’d wielded any sort of weapon. He wanted to follow them, to be useful, to help people like they tried to do, and protect them from harm, so he gathered enough courage to ask for guidance.

They took turns on his training, working through the variety of styles they learned over the years. Nicolò took easily to the bow, the act of aiming and relaxing fitting him like a well-worn glove, but others gave him more trouble. Andromache’s skill with an ax felt unattainable, though she did her best to console him with the fact that she was over fifty times older than him. Fighting in pairs, with him and Yusuf against the other two, on the other hand, felt easy. Falling into step with him, their movements complementing each other’s, was natural and it never failed to leave Nicolò flushed, a strange warmth making his skin fell too tight. The look in Yusuf’s face afterward showed he wasn’t alone in this.

He enjoyed their dedication to him, in every aspect, but sometimes during these training sessions it took all his strength to keep his head in place. Remembering his past, becoming aware of it, came with a price, after all.

Sometimes it was a specific movement or a touch. Smells and sights were less likely to cause it, his world being much reduced for so long sparing part of his senses. Having his hair grabbed was the worst of them. He felt so ashamed afterward, of blanking out, getting limp and unresisting like a puppet in Quỳnh’s hands. She stayed with him, talking gently all the while, until he came back to himself.

(They used to say it would hurt less if he didn’t resist.

It always hurt the same.)

They didn’t push him, though he could see they wanted to in the way Yusuf seemed to be swallowing his words back most of the time they speak, holding them in. He tried his best to hide, to get over it, but it didn’t seem like the world wanted him to have any reprieve.

“Nicolò.”

Two weeks without incidents. Two weeks.

“Nico,” the voice insisted, using the nickname Yusuf had given him. Blinking, he saw Andromache’s face staring back at him pointedly. He had nowhere to hide under her gaze. 

Two weeks, and it had to happen with Andromache, of all people.

“Are you with me again?” she asked. The caution in her voice made his stomach sink, and he just nodded. “Good, that’s better. Tell me about it.”

“About what?” he murmured, sitting down from his crouched position. The tiredness he felt all of sudden didn’t seem to have anything to do with her trying to teach him hand-to-hand combat, and everything with the fog that befell him when a well-placed kick brought him to his knees.

“About where you go when you turn like that,” she explained, sitting down beside him. “About how you shy away from some touches, but not others, and yet you don’t tell us why.”

“I don’t know why, it just… happens.” He could almost hear Yusuf’s voice in his head, teasing him to _use your words, Nico, you have too many of them inside you but you still let so few out_. Her expectant look said the same. “Some touches—I don’t know which until it happens—but some of them, it’s like I’m back in the cell,” he tried, the words ill-fitting for the enormity of this feeling inside him, “I’m trying to stop it, but it catches me like this sometimes, and—”

“And you protect yourself as you did there,” she finished. “You brace yourself for the pain your mind thinks is to come.”

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to—”

“Don’t be sorry,” she cut him off, his mouth snapping shut. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Nicolò, you’re one of the strongest men I’ve ever known! What you suffered, the pain you’ve been through, and yet you’re still here, still fighting.” His eyes burned the more she spoke, the first tears fell when she reached to cup his cheek. “After we found you, Quỳnh barely slept for weeks; Yusuf threw himself into housework and caring for you, but I could see how much what they saw there affected them. We might have killed the people who hurt you, we might have burned the entire place to the ground until there was no stone left intact, but it won’t make what happened go away.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. He hated how small his voice felt.

“Lean on us,” she answered, “Tell us when things make you feel bad, talk to us about your fears. Can you do that?” She smiled when he nodded. “Good. Now, I have an idea about how to get you used to touch.”

“What is it?”

“Dancing,” she replied, pulling him to his feet.

The most interesting thing was that, no matter what, Yusuf never seemed to provoke this sort of reaction in him. His touch felt comfortable, reassuring, _safe_ , all the time, every time, and it left Nicolò out of words to explain. He still debated with himself before bringing his worries to him, for most of the time it seemed to sully their time together, but Yusuf never complained or gave any indication of feeling bothered by it. If anything, he always told him to come to him for help anytime he needed, no matter how small he thought the problem to be.

 _If you let small problems grow into big ones, they’ll only breed even more problems, my friend_ , he would say. 

Nicolò could hear the words clearly while staring at Yusuf’s sleeping shape across the room. The nightmare had been mild—he hadn’t even bitten his tongue bloody to keep in any screams—but still disquieting enough that he felt reluctant to fall asleep again. Yusuf would berate him in the morning if he noticed he hadn’t slept though, and he always noticed. He supposed the talks of leaving this safe house, this _haven_ had affected him more than he thought.

“Yusuf,” he called.

“Hmm?” came the reply, after his second try, with Yusuf’s mussed head emerging from the blankets. “Nico, what is it?”

Biting his lip, Nicolò fought the urge to say it was nothing, to send him back to sleep unbothered. “Can I sleep with you?” he said instead, the words leaving him in a rush. “It’s just, I mean—” Yusuf raised an eyebrow, and he sighed. “It was a nightmare. I tried falling asleep again, but I couldn't and I thought… I feel safe when you're touching me, so I thought I could sleep then.”

The words felt lame, ridiculous the second he spoke them. He should have just stayed awaken and bear it with dignity in the mornin—

“Come here.”

Snapping his head up, he saw Yusuf scooting away to make space on the bed; there was no judgment in his eyes, but again, there had never been. As if dreaming, Nicolò crossed the length of the room, shifting on his feet by the side of the bed. Yusuf pulled the covers back, a clear invitation, and he sat down.

“Is this all right?” asked Yusuf after, as they laid facing each other barely more than a handbreadth away. Nicolò felt his heavy, warm palm settling on his side, his fears melting away under its weight.

“Yes,” he sighed. 

“What was the dream about?”Yusuf grumbled. This close in, Nicolò could feel the vibrations of his chest. 

(The weight of the hammer’s head against his teeth, cracking them one by one. They thought it funny to watch them grow back.)

“The usual,” he said, hoping he would accept it without more questions. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“Don’t be silly, I told you to do it.” 

“Still…”

“Hush, go to sleep.”

He tried, focusing on the man in front of him, on his deep breathing and the smell of his skin. The nape of neck kept prickling, invisible eyes boring into his back from the shadows; he shifted closer until he was almost pressing against Yusuf’s front, and still the feeling lingered.

“I need—” he muttered, turning to face the room. Only the glow from the brazier met him, flickering slowly, and he settled on his side. Yusuf’s arm came back around him, the hand pressing against his chest; now all he felt across his back was Yusuf’s warmth, and he relaxed on his solid embrace.

“Better now?” 

He felt both words as puffs of air on his skin, sending a pleasant shiver down his body. _Much_ better now.

“I don’t know why you’re so patient with me,” he said instead, “All I do is give you trouble.”

“You’re no trouble to me. I’m here for you whenever you need, whatever you need” answered Yusuf, tightening his hold, “Even if you still don’t feel ready to talk about some things. I’ll wait until you are.”

“That might take time,” he muttered.

“Guess it’s a good thing then, how much time we have. As you said, I’m very patient.”

Nicolò chuckled, and he couldn’t help the fact that it came out a little wet. He thought he could do this, whenever they ended up leaving this house for good and venturing back into the world; if he had Yusuf, his little family with him, he could find the strength to do anything. If he didn’t, well, there were a lot of hands to help keep him steady. He snuggled in the bedding, and very carefully, placed his own hand above Yusuf’s. They fit so well together…

“Yusuf?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they all lived happily forever, Quynh was never thrown into the sea because they became extremely wary of capture. That's it!


	3. NOW A SERIES

This is now a series! I have a few other ideas in mind for it, so if you'd like to be notified subscribe! Thank you for all your love!

**Author's Note:**

> One more chapter from Nicky's perspective, plus Andromache and Quynh are back.
> 
> As always, you can find me at [my tumblr](http://strangehighs.tumblr.com/) if you wanna scream about The Old Guard some more.


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